“And about all we get from the poor old dear,” Laura said, “is a Paris-Kentucky accent and an ability to shrug our shoulders. Goodness! she’s got me doing that, too.”
As for the German teacher, Frau Deuseldorf, she was of a different type entirely. A tall, formidable looking woman was Frau Deuseldorf, with a magnificent air, no waistline, and a wart on her nose. Nan, whenever she stood before the good lady, never could see anything of the teacher’s face save that unfortunate blemish.
Perhaps the teacher whom the girls as a whole disliked the most was Professor Krenner. He was a martinet in mathematics; whereas Nan found him a most lovable and delightful instructor in architectural drawing. It finally became a regular practice for the architectural drawing class to attend the professor’s lecture at his own cabin, one afternoon a week. And these afternoons were most delightfully spent.
Nan did not go alone. She had interested in the study another girl, and oddly enough that was “Procrastination Boggs.” Amelia Boggs, from Wauhegan, was certainly peculiar; but Nan had learned to like her very quickly.
Amelia told Nan all about the clocks and watches. Her father owned a store in Wauhegan, which had been let to a jeweler and clock-dealer. Mr. Boggs could not collect his rent, and Amelia undertook to do so. The clock-dealer had no money, but he offered to pay his rent out of his stock-in-trade.
“I took him up on that, for Pop was too easy,” explained Amelia, “and I went through his shop, looked at the price-tags, and picked out enough clocks and watches to fill a wheelbarrow. My brother Johnny wheeled ’em home. We sold some, and I expected to sell some of these I brought with me. But the girls think it’s such a joke I’ll never be able to get rid of ’em. Never mind. It only makes ’em laugh, so where’s the harm?”
That they laughed at her and her peculiarities, did not bother Amelia. With Nan and her friends, the girl from Wauhegan was happy; and if she did not get along very fast in some of her studies, it was not so serious a matter. Amelia was delighted to get down into the kitchen (she had bribed the cook with a clock) and there she concocted little dishes, some of which found their way to Dr. Prescott’s table.
“Mercy on us!” said the preceptress, laughing. “Amelia will have me start a course in domestic science; and that is not what their parents have sent these girls to my school for.”
However, once enlisted in the cause of Nan’s banquet in the haunted boathouse, Amelia Boggs became very helpful. It was she who borrowed tablecloths and napkins from the cook for use at the feast. Henry kept the door of the unused part of the boathouse locked, only to be opened when Nan and Bess and Amelia went there to make final preparations for the banquet on the afternoon of the day selected.
They laid the cloths, trimmed and filled the hanging lamp, and laid the fire ready to light. Then the key of the door was entrusted to Walter Mason and he ran around into Freeling port in his motor boat just before supper.